‘I am told that this is a portrait of her when she was twenty-one.’ She held it out to Rosa, and Rosa looked down at the portrait in its gilded frame. It showed a woman – astonishingly beautiful – her ebony hair piled high on her head. She was dressed in walking clothes and there was a little white-haired boy on her lap – Sebastian perhaps?
Her face was a china oval, her eyes large and lustrous, but she was not smiling, and there was something hard about her face, something that reminded Rosa of Sebastian. It was not a pretty face – it was too uncompromising for that. Her lips were set firmly, and the artist had caught the light that burnt in her eyes, as if there was a flame inside, waiting to consume her from within.
No, it was not a pretty face. But it was a remarkable face; the face of someone who would burn bright and fierce.
There was something in her hand, something that caught the light and threw it back at the artist, and Rosa held the portrait closer, trying to see what it was.
‘What is it she’s holding?’ she asked Cassie, and then blushed, realizing what she’d said. ‘I’m sorry – I forgot you can’t . . . It doesn’t matter – it looks like a cane, but it’s familiar somehow. That’s why I wondered.’
‘There’s no need to be sorry,’ Cassie said lightly. ‘I know the cane you mean. It is familiar because it is the same as the one Sebastian has now. With the head of a silver snake eating its own tail. I used to play with Mama’s when I was a child – I loved to run my fingers over the snake, feeling it twist and turn.’
‘But . . .’ Rosa stopped. She was trying to remember where she’d heard that phrase: the snake eating its own tail. She remembered Sebastian saying, ‘It was my father’s . . . I would not lose it for the world.’ But someone else had described a cane so similar . . . someone who could not have seen it. An ebony cane with a head of silver in the shape of a twisted ouroboros . . .
Luke.
It was like a cold touch down her spine.
She remembered his voice in the forest night as they lay huddled in each other’s arms. She remembered him describing the witch who had come to his parents’ house in the depths of the night and killed them both, so that the blood ran down the walls while he huddled beneath the settle and saw only the snake’s-head cane rolling towards him.
It did not make sense. Nothing made sense.
‘But – but Sebastian said . . .’ She swallowed, her throat too dry to speak, and then tried again. ‘Sebastian said the cane was his father’s.’
‘I said the same as his cane,’ Cassie corrected. ‘Not the same cane. They were a pair – her wedding gift to him. Sebastian has my father’s cane now. My mother’s – I suppose it is still in her room.’
The blood beat in Rosa’s ears. She did a terrible thing . . . It was before I was born . . .
‘Rosa?’ She heard Cassie’s voice as if from very far away. ‘Rosa, are you quite well? You sound—’
She managed to shake her head, feeling the exhaustion run through her muscles like water.
‘I’m very tired. I need to rest – to think . . .’
Luke.
‘Luke!’ The voice was a hiss, like the sound of a snake spitting, and for a moment Luke thought he had imagined it, that it was all part of his dream: the twisting, silver snake, poised to strike, Rosa with her hands outstretched and the snake wrapped around her throat, hissing, hissing...
‘Luke!’ It came again, a sibilant whisper in the dark. He scrambled to his feet, looking wildly about. The crack of light was gone from beneath the door and he had no way of knowing where he was in the darkness. He put a hand in front of his face and felt nothing.
‘Luke! Are you in there?’ The sound was slight, but in the silence it bounced off the bare walls, filling his cell with its whispers.
‘Yes!’ he called, his voice shaking. ‘Who are you?’
‘It’s me, lad.’ A different voice: deeper, louder, less afraid. One that made his heart leap into his throat and his pulse quicken. One that made him want to fling himself against the door.
‘Uncle?’ he called back. He could tell where the voices were coming from now. William’s deep, sure voice was easier to place than the first echoing whisper, and he felt his way across the dark space to the direction of the sound. The brick walls were cold and damp to his touch, until he came to a metal door. ‘William!’ He wasn’t sure whether to sob or laugh. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘We’ve come to get you out.’ There was a grim purpose to his voice. ‘Stand back.’
Luke heard a scraping from the outside, as if something were being forced into the crack of the door. Then there was a crunching screech, metal on metal, and he heard William’s desperate groan as he heaved with all his strength.
‘Shove the blocks in, there’s a good lass.’
A good lass? Luke’s heart leapt. It couldn’t be . . . Rosa?
There was a thud as wooden blocks were forced into a narrow gap and then another shrieking crunch as William put his crowbar to the gap once more. Then with a suddenness that made him almost jump out of his skin, the thick metal hinges gave with a shrieking bang and the door crashed backwards on to the concrete floor.
Outside, in the dim light of a single lantern, William and Minna stood, both of them grinning from ear to ear.
Minna. Luke’s crushing disappointment was swiftly followed by shame, that he could feel so, when he should have been thanking her with all his heart for freeing him.
‘Minna. Uncle.’ He staggered forward on shaky legs and fell into his uncle’s strong arms, feeling the tears come hot to the back of his eyes as he leant on his uncle’s hard shoulder and felt his hand clap him firm on the back, holding him as if he’d never let go.
‘My God, thank you – you don’t know . . .’ His voice cracked and he couldn’t carry on.
But William was shaking his head, his face grim.
‘I can imagine, lad. But come on. We’ve got to get out of here before Leadingham comes back.’
‘He’s in league with Knyvet,’ Luke gasped as William shouldered the crowbar and pulled his muffler over his face. He flung another one to Luke. ‘All this time.’
‘Minna told me.’ William nodded at Minna, standing in the corner of the abattoir. She tossed her head.
‘Don’t I get a kiss for being yer knight in shining armour?’
‘Thank you.’ He moved across to where she was standing, but he didn’t kiss her. Instead he put his arms around her, feeling the sharp edges of her limbs, her cheekbone hard against his chest. ‘I’m sorry, Minna. In the Cock, I didn’t mean—’
‘Yes, you did. And I deserved it. But c’mon. We ain’t got time to stand here gabbing.’
She grabbed his hand, her fingers thin and wiry in his, and pulled him towards the door where William was standing.
‘Come on,’ William said. He turned towards the door to the street, his hand outstretched for the latch.
Then everything happened very quickly.
As he put his hand out there was a sudden rush, the door flung open and a man came barrelling in.
He had a club of wood in both hands, held high above his head, and before William could do so much as cry out, he brought it crashing down.
William fell to the floor with a thump and blood began to pool around him.
Luke froze in horror. He wanted with all his heart to run to William and gather him up. But the man stood over his prone body, the club in his hand. He was wearing a hood and muffler, but Luke knew who it was before he looked up, pulling away his scarf.
‘Hello, Luke.’
It was Leadingham.
‘You bastard,’ he managed, though his voice was choked and raw with fear for William. ‘What did he ever do to you? It was me you wanted. Not him.’
‘He got in the way,’ Leadingham said flatly. ‘There’s no more morality to it than what happens to a man who steps out in front of a galloping horse. Don’t look at me like that, lad. If you do something stupid, you may get it in the
neck. That’s all there is to it.’
‘I’m not your lad.’ Luke’s voice shook with rage. He looked to where the butcher’s knives stood against the wall, great heavy things in wooden slots in the butcher’s block.
‘Give up,’ Leadingham said flatly. ‘Give yourself up and I’ll get a doctor here; maybe it’s not too late.’
For a minute Luke wavered. He was within reaching distance of the knives. But was it worth it – to carry on fighting and bleeding and hurting, and to risk William’s life? It was true after all; he had betrayed his oath. He had betrayed the Brothers. He’d known the price he would pay before he did it, so why was he trying to wriggle out of paying it now?
‘Come on, lad . . .’ Leadingham said warningly. ‘Your uncle’s bleeding to death while you tap yer foot. You ain’t got long to think about this.’
Luke put his hands to his head. He just needed a minute to think. But all the time, William was lying on the cold stone floor, the blood black and glinting around his head.
‘Luke!’ Leadingham snapped. ‘Come on, lad, this is your last chance. I’m running outta patience. If you want your uncle to live . . . I’ll throw in the girl’s safe passage too, for good measure, so make up your mind before I run out of goodwill. Five. Four—’
‘Oh, shurrup,’ Minna growled from behind Luke. ‘Luke, don’t listen to ’im. He knows full well we ain’t never getting out of here. He can’t afford for us to blab what we seen.’
‘Shut up, you little bitch!’ Leadingham snarled, but it was too late. Luke saw that what Minna had said was true. It was not just William’s life ticking away. Either he fought, or they all died.
He took a step towards the butcher’s block and grabbed a knife.
Leadingham’s wrinkled brown face split into a great, wolfish grin, and Luke saw that he was in some perverse way pleased, that he had known it would end like this, that for all his protests he had wanted Luke to fight, to die like a man.
‘So that’s how it is then, is it?’ He let his club drop to the floor and pulled a knife from a sheath at his belt. It was a long wicked thing, sharpened to a stabbing point. Luke looked down at his own knife, grabbed at random from the block. It was a skinning knife, long and curved, sharpened along the blade for slicing, not stabbing. But it had a point, albeit a blunt one, and it would slice a tendon, or an artery, or cut a throat as well as any.
Leadingham crouched with his blade held out in front of him, and Luke was reminded of that night, months before, when Leadingham had taught him how to wield a knife.
Pulmonary artery, kidney, Achilles . . . Stick ’em as hard and fast as you can, and get out.
The words rang in Luke’s head as he circled cautiously in the lamplight, watching their shadows dance against the wall, watching John Leadingham’s little grinning face opposite him, his eyes glittering like polished stones in the candlelight.
He felt the knife slip in his sweating hand and the exhaustion in his shaking muscles. His heart beat fast and shakily, and he knew he didn’t have much strength left. If he didn’t bring this to a close quickly he would stand no chance at all.
He lunged, striking for Leadingham’s knife arm, but the little man jerked his arm up, parrying the blow with his forearm before the blade could make contact, and then twisting in so that his own knife sliced along Luke’s wrist and up his arm, through the material of his greatcoat.
Luke twisted himself away and staggered back, clutching with his free hand for the place Leadingham had hit. For a minute he felt nothing at all. And then the spreading warmth of blood blossomed sticky beneath his palm and he heard the first splat as a fat drop fell on the floor.
They carried on circling, the blood dripping steadily from Luke’s arm. He tried to keep his knife hand up, to try to stem the flow, and to keep the blood from running over his hand and making it slip on the hilt of the knife. There was nothing he could do about his sweating palms, but it would be fatal to add blood to the mix.
‘Give it up, lad,’ Leadingham said, and his voice was that hoarse, friendly rasp that Luke had known since his childhood. It was a voice that had croaked out songs and nursery rhymes, had joked and praised and taught. It was hard to remember that this circling figure was trying to kill him, and not just teasing him in play as they’d done so often. Could he really do it? Could he kill Leadingham, a man who’d dandled him on his knee and slipped him pear drops before bed?
A man who’s trying to kill you.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Minna pressed against the wall, her eyes fierce with hate, and it came to him that it should have been her, here, wielding the knife. She would’ve killed, stuck it home with a good will. She was more of a fighter, more of a man than he’d ever be.
Leadingham struck, taking advantage of his distraction. The knife flashed before Luke’s face, going for his throat, and he was grappling for Leadingham’s arm, trying to turn the blade away.
There was a long, long eternity as they both struggled, with no sound but their gasping breaths and the splat of Luke’s blood on the floor, and then Luke’s foot slipped in a splash of his own blood and his feet went out from under him.
He fell, taking Leadingham with him, his knife clutched to his breast. His head cracked on to concrete, sending a blaze of pain roaring through him, and then they were rolling in the blood and sawdust, locked in each other’s arms, too close to stab. Luke was imprisoned in Leadingham’s grip, and somewhere in between their two chests was his knife, but where?
There was a clatter as something fell to the floor; he could not see if it was his knife or Leadingham’s, but there was something hard against his pelvis, something that felt like a hilt, digging into his gut, wedged between them.
He strained one hand down between their tight-locked bodies, trying to reach it, and then there was a sudden searing pain in his cheek and he pulled back, roaring with fury, to see Leadingham laughing at him with bloodstained teeth.
‘You bit me, you bloody animal!’ Luke shouted, and Leadingham laughed again, Luke’s blood running down his chin.
‘All’s fair in love and war, lad! There ain’t no Queensberry Rules here!’
Through the hot, red haze of pain and rage, his hand closed on the knife. Leadingham pulled back to go for a punch and Luke brought it up, hot and slippery in his grip, and suddenly the point was at Leadingham’s throat.
Leadingham went very still. He was on top of Luke, but his right arm was trapped beneath Luke’s spine, and his own knife was far away across the floor.
‘Go on then, lad,’ he whispered. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’ll kill you!’ Luke panted. There was blood in on his face and in his eyes. He felt the tearing of his own heart and breath, and the force of Leadingham’s life pounding through the body pressed against his own. ‘I’ll kill you, you bastard!’
‘Go on then!’ Leadingham snarled. ‘Do it, lad! Don’t just lie there prating at me. Do it!’
Luke clenched his fingers on the knife.
Do it. Do it.
Leadingham’s face above his, his eyes bright with life and the thrill of the fight.
His heart pounding next to Luke’s.
The heat of his breath on Luke’s face. His voice in his ear.
‘Do it!’
The point of Luke’s knife was against Leadingham’s throat – and he could not do it. He could not drive it home.
He shut his eyes. He gritted his teeth . . .
And then suddenly there was a deafening crack and Leadingham’s body jerked down on top of his, driving all the breath out of him.
Luke opened his eyes wide, panicking.
Leadingham lay on top of him, heavy and limp. The tip of Luke’s knife had gone clean through his throat.
Above them both stood Minna, a club in her hand, and her face was white as bleached bone.
‘I done it, Luke,’ she whispered. ‘Gawd help me, I done it.’
She let the club fall from her hand with a crash, and fell to he
r knees in the blood and the muck.
‘I killed him.’
Luke pushed with all his strength and the heavy, limp body of Leadingham rolled off him and fell to the concrete floor with a thud. He struggled to sit up, but as he did so he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his upper chest, and when he looked down he was covered in blood. His own, or Leadingham’s?
At first he wasn’t sure, but when he pulled open his shirt, he could see no breaks in his own skin, just a huge spreading bruise across the right side of his chest, below his shoulder. He put his hand to his ribs; something creaked ominously and it hurt to breathe.
For a minute he could not work out what had happened. Had Leadingham hit him? But when? Then he realized – the knife that he’d held in his right hand must have been driven back against his own body by Leadingham’s weight. The hilt had smacked into his chest with all the force of Minna’s blow, driving the blade through Leadingham’s throat and breaking his own ribs.
He drew an experimental breath. It hurt. But not so much that he couldn’t stand.
He dragged himself to his feet and staggered past John’s sprawled body, past Minna slumped white-faced and frozen where she had let the club fall, to where William lay on his side in a pool of thickening blood.
‘William!’ he croaked, falling to his knees at his side. ‘Uncle!’
‘Luke . . .’ It was a whisper, the smallest, softest whisper, so different from William’s deep, booming voice that it brought a sob to Luke’s throat, but his uncle was alive – and that was all that mattered.
‘Uncle! Oh, thank God, thank God . . .’ The words tumbled out and he was crying, the tears falling hot on William’s shoulder and arm, but he did not care. He bent and kissed his uncle’s stubble-rough cheek, feeling William’s breath come faint against his own blood splashed face.
‘You’ll be all right, you understand?’ He blinked furiously against the blurring tears. ‘I’ll get a doctor. Minna will stay with you, won’t you, Minna? Won’t you!’ he shouted, when she did not respond, and she jumped, and stumbled across the floor to kneel beside them.
Witch Hunt (Witch Finder 2) Page 22